I must admit, it’s good to no longer be a professional student! I started work at Side Effects Software Inc. a week after graduating, and I think I’m finally getting into the swing of things there, and hopefully I can start producing some kick ass animation soon. If you’ve used Houdini before… you probably understood the title of this update.

Aside from work, one of the big perks of graduating is that I now feel like I have spare time! I started playing guitar when I was in grade 10, but unfortuantely I pretty much put that on hold once I started college. Now that I’m a free man though, I’m hapy to say that I’ve picked it back up. If you think that my playing is rusty after all this time… you should check out my strings! I bought a new bridge though, and Haven’t bothered to put (all) the new strings on yet as I’m looking at getting the truss rod adjusted. I wouldn’t have put any of the new strings on yet, but sadly one broke. Guess that’s what happens with 4 year old, rusty strings though.

I also bought an E-MU 0404 (basically an external sound card), and I must say it’s awesome! Absolutely -no- hiss when recording, and I hear parts of music with it that I didn’t know were even there! This has rekindled my listening-to of my music collection, and in fact I’ve bought a few new cds. Reign of Terror’s Conquer and Divide (not a bad find… but not terribly exciting), Uli John Roth’s Metamorphosis of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (very very good if you like classical music with electric guitars), Lacuna Coil’s Unleashed Memories (All around solid album… no complaints), Megadeth’s United Abominations (The more I listen to it, the more I love it. Very Risk/World Needs a Heroish), and finally Paul Gilbert’s Get Out of My Yard. Crap… the title track on that album is enough to give me a hernia with how awesome it is. I can’t wait for the new Symphony X and Dream Theater albums next month!

Now that I’ve got some equipment together, I’ll probably be practicing frequently enough that I’ll get my fingers back into shape and play some rawked out rock.

   Well, well, well? looks like we?ve got our first update of 2007! I have to take a moment to apologize for the lack up content on this site, but hopefully you can all forgive me as I hand you one of the biggest additions this site may see for eons to come. That?s right folks, me education has finally come to an end. Five years is a long time, and I?m relieved to be done with it, but its conclusion is also a harbinger for great things!

   I’ve not only edited my gallery to get rid of some of the more irrelevant content, but I?ve added some new pieces too. To really top this one off, is my completed thesis project entitled Quiet Chernobyl: The Aral Sea. You?ll find it on the mini-site down at the bottom of this lovely web-thingy in the portfolio section.

I have been VERY inept at updating my site this year!

   Usually, when I feel that I don?t have much to write, I just don?t bother. There hasn?t been a whole lot lately that I feel the mass public would miss out on if I didn?t report, but I figure, ?What the heck. More than 500 visitors since the last time I updated, and I got 3 new drawings that aren?t all that bad. Let?s make with the html-ing already!?

   I told myself I wouldn?t do it. I tried to stay away from it. But alas, the Final Fantasy franchise has a Vulcan death grip on my hypothalamus, effectively disabling my resistance to gaming. I eventually got ole Spock to let go, but not before letting it suck up around 15 hours of my life. Once school ends, I?m sure I?ll find a way to let it suck up much more than that. I must say, the game was way more fun than I expected. Anyone out there who has considered not playing it, I suggest at least renting it. I?ve also grown addicted to reading. I personally find it humourous. I was an avid little reader when I was a wee one, but I hadn?t read a single novel in an eight year period. Since June, I?ve now read about 15 I think. I?m currently on book 5 of Robert Jordon?s Wheel of Time series. I quite enjoy it. I?ve also been trying to re-acquaint myself with Photoshop. Gnomon is helping with that. My short needs more work.

There are three new figure drawings up. They?re the first of my attempts at observational drawings in full colour.

   Wow! It seems like regardless of how well intentioned I am, I always go too long without an update. So here it is: one rather large update. My internship at SESI this summer was amazing. I learned a lot, and got to meet some pretty great people. Without the help of Jeff Wagner in particular, I don’t think I would have left there with even half of my current Houdini knowledge. I left a week later than I was scheduled to leave, so I had a chance to help out with the Lsystems tutorial as well as get the two new T.O. interns ready to continue the project that we had been working on for SIGGRAPH. On the topic of the internship, I’ve got some added movies in the gallery. I’ve got a test of the particle fireball I developed (I believe that SESI is in the progress of making a tutorial for this effect), as well as an Electrocution effect that I created. Also, I’ve got a link to the SIGGRAPH demo (I worked on effects and designed the muscle-bound villain) on the SESI website. Lots of excitement!

   In other news, I was awarded the Nova Scotia Talent Trust scholarship this year. It’s always nice to receive some help toward that $40k debt I’ve racked up. This leads me to mentioning that I?m finally in my graduate year at Sheridan. About time! We’ve got a couple of great new teachers this year, Dennis Turner for example. I almost feel bad for just mentioning him though, as we have a ton of great teachers at Sheridan at the moment including Barry Parker, Gerry Zeldin, Mark Mayerson, Doug Smith (who unfortunately is impossible to find a webpage with quick reference for, due to the internet thinking that a colleague of his also named Doug Smith are in fact the same omnipotent identity) and Bruno Degazio. The school is surprisingly organized this year too. It’s a shame it took them 3 years to get our curriculum worked out, but at least the years to come will have a… less… um, how shall I put it… impaired education. I mean, the third years this year are even allowed to do 3d films for their group films. An opportunity that we were fiercely denied.

   I’ve begun work on my thesis project: A 1 minute film about the Aral Sea. I’m pretty excited about it, but it’s going to be a lot of work. My leica reel has been posted in the gallery, so feel free to check it out, and give me some feedback on it if you want. I’ve also placed three new figure drawings in the gallery. As I said, large update!

   Note to those who love music. Check out Dream Theater’s live DVD, Score. Best concert DVD I’ve ever bought!

Hey there anyone who reads this! The summer is already almost half-over, and I felt that meant it was time for me to apologize. I feel bad when I look at my stat counter and see that I’ve had more than 200 unique visitors since my last update, some of whom have checked back multiple times. I feel bad because I know there are people who seem interested in this little den of mine, and yet I have not the new material with which to appeal to their roving minds. I’ve been relatively busy this summer. I’m currently working 12 hour days in an (assuredly futile) attempt to get things accomplished at my internship, but man am I learning. For those of you out of the know, I’m currently interning with SESI doing secretive secretive work. I’ll be able to post some of it at the end of the summer. It’s not going to be a very large quantity… but I’ve learned so much in Houdini this summer that hopefully I’ll be able to pull off some nice stuff for my graduate thesis this upcoming year. And if not… well… I’ve been trying to play guitar again… maybe I can get a job in the subway or something. I likely won’t have my commissions section up… for a long time… and I hope to get some tutorials up by the end of the summer too. Maybe even a Houdini one.

Well hello out there to anyone who should be stumbling across my site! Huge update for me. May 5th was my birthday, and so I decided that I’d give myself a birthday by redesigning my website. Hope you find it comfortable enough to look at, I like it better than the design I’ve had for the past two years. It’s essentially the same, but different colours, slightly different layout, and I’m also adding a section for tutorials. I’ve got a couple that I’ve done for my fellow students and so figure that I may as well place them online for maximum audience enjoyment. At any rate, the biggest portion of the work is done, but obviously it’s not finished. I’ll try to have stuff like… my resume… updated soon, get the tutorials up, and then I might toy with the layout of my links, and gallery. I of course have plenty of other news, but, I’ll save that for tomorrow maybe.

Wow! So tomorrow will be the last day of school for the 2005-2006 school year here at Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning. That means that I start my internship on Monday, which hopefully means I’ll be a Houdini pro in about four months. Well… at least very familiar with it. Because Jarrett has been asking for it, here’s a newer version of my Demo Reel. It’s got a model tagged onto the end that I’m working on. Any Marvel Comic fans out there? My arm muscles are tired… I need to play guitar more. It’s been way way too long. At any rate, this weekend will likely be devoted to watching instructional material on Houdini. Just as a reminder, Zero Hour and a Half takes place on ConceptArt.org every sunday. Be there! Speaking of being there, Pixar came to visit Sheridan today. Watching the process of The Incredibles was pretty neat. I was able to give my demo to the two animators (whose names I regretfully forget) so hopefully I can get some feedback. Curse you EA. Thank you Bioware. Alright, time for my incoherrant (made even more incoherrant due to me not spell checking, I’m sure) speech to end. See you next month!

Just finished eating an Easter Dinner with the roommates and the family of one of the roommates. Chicken can be quite tasty… and pumpkin pie… can be made quite poorly. That’s what happens when you allow me to make it though. Guess now I know how not to do it though. At any rate, I also am trying to get a weekly sketch thing going seeing as I’ve been kind of ignoring the old illustrative arts for a while now. You can find out more about that at my thread at ConceptArt.org I posted this week’s work in my gallery in the illustration section. I am rather pleased with it. Thank you Scott Robertson.

I updated my Demo Reel to include some of the rough tests I have done that weren’t included in my old demo… I figure it’s not a bad idea to show some of the knowledge that I have that I have not yet put into a scene. The shot of the rain on the maya ocean… is… not clear at all… so I’m currently making a new version of that with more than 15 minutes put into it.

Well, the work that I’ve been doing this year seems to have paid off. I will be interning this summer with SideFX which is really great news for me, because that means I’ll get to become excedingly familiar with Houdini this summer! I’ve known for a week now, but needless to say I’ve been a little busy what with school wrapping up in a couple of weeks. Plenty of life drawing, 4th year film planning, character modeling, and yes yes, I must do some work on the third year film (as much as I’d rather not). Anyways, just thought I’d stop by to let everyone know that I’m taken care of this summer. Also, I did 7 abstract pieces today… 4 of which I decided to post in my gallery. Check em out in the illustration section! They’re the new ones… you know… with the white box around them. Sadly they took less time than pretty much any picture I’ve done before (they’re abstract afterall…) but at the same time, I think I actually like them more than any of my other work. No spell check for me!